Haazinu: Unlimited Potential

 The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good. –Brian Tracy 

Upon his very final moments of life, Moses delivers a prophetic poem, rich in imagery from nature. He calls upon the heavens and the earth as witnesses. He compares his words to rain and dew upon the vegetation.

The Sfat Emet in 5634 (1874) draws on the very first chapter of the Torah to understand the allegories better. When God created man, it says, He created man from the earth (Adama in Hebrew). God named man Adam, because he drew him forth from the earth. The earth represents pure potential. Untouched, the land will not give you anything. However, if you plow it, place seeds in the ground, and especially when you water it, the land will then produce fruit.

Man too, says the Sfat Emet, like the earth that he comes from, has untapped potential. But for man, the water is the oft-compared Torah. When a man drinks from the Torah, when he draws from the Torah, when he is irrigated with Torah, then he has the possibility of reaching his full potential and of bearing fruits that will be of eternal value.

May we have a thirst for Torah and drink deeply from it.

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach,

Ben-Tzion

Dedication

To my beloved community of Uruguay.